Posted on 09/30/2003 12:19:22 PM PDT by sheltonmac
The South's unconditional surrender in 1865 apparently was unacceptable to today's Neo-Confederates.
They'd like to rewrite history, demonizing Abraham Lincoln and the federal government that forced them to remain in the awful United States against their will.
On top of that, now they are opposing the U.S. Navy's plan to bury the crew of the CSS H.L. Hunley under the American flag next year.
The Hunley was the first submarine to sink an enemy vessel. In 1863, it rammed and fatally damaged the Union warship USS Housatonic with a fixed torpedo, but then the manually driven sub sank on its way home, killing its eight-man crew.
It might have been a lucky shot from the Housatonic, leaks caused by the torpedo explosion, an accidental strike by another Union ship, malfunction of its snorkel valves, damage to its steering planes or getting stuck in the mud.
In any case, the Navy found and raised its remains and plans a full-dress military funeral and burial service on April 17, 2004, in Charleston, S.C. The four-mile funeral procession is expected to draw 10,000 to 20,000 people, many in period costume or Confederate battle dress.
But the Sons of Confederate Veterans, generally a moderate group that works diligently to preserve Southern history and heritage, has a radical wing that is salivating with anger.
One Texas Confederate has drawn 1,600 signatures on a petition saying "the flag of their eternal enemy, the United States of America," must not fly over the Hunley crew's funeral.
To their credit, the funeral's organizers will leave the U.S. flag flying.
After all, the search and preservation of the Hunley artifacts, as well as the funeral itself, were paid for by U.S. taxpayers.
Also, the Hunley crew was born under the Stars and Stripes. The Confederacy was never an internationally recognized nation, so the crewmen also died as citizens of the United States.
They were in rebellion, but they were still Americans.
This whole issue is an insult to all Southerners who fought under the U.S. flag before and since the Civil War.
But it isn't the only outrage by rabid secessionists.
They are also opposing the placement of a statue of Abraham Lincoln in Richmond, Va., the Confederate capital.
According to an article by Bob Moser and published in the Southern Poverty Law Center's magazine "Intelligence Report," which monitors right-wing and hate groups, the U.S. Historical Society announced it was donating a statue of Lincoln to Richmond.
Lincoln visited that city in April 1865 to begin healing the wounds caused by the war.
The proposed life-sized statue has Lincoln resting on a bench, looking sad, his arm around his 12-year-old son, Tad. The base of the statue has a quote from his second inaugural address.
However, the League of the South and the Sons of Confederate Veterans raised a stink, calling Lincoln a tyrant and war criminal. Neo-Confederates are trying to make Lincoln "a figure few history students would recognize: a racist dictator who trashed the Constitution and turned the USA into an imperialist welfare state," Moser's article says.
White supremacist groups have jumped onto the bandwagon. Their motto is "Taking America back starts with taking Lincoln down."
Actually, if it weren't for the forgiving nature of Lincoln, Richmond would be a smoking hole in the ground and hundreds of Confederate leaders -- including Jefferson Davis -- would be hanging from trees from Fredericksburg, Va., to Atlanta.
Robert E. Lee said, "I surrendered as much to Lincoln's goodness as I did to Grant's armies."
Revisionist history to suit a political agenda is as intellectually abhorrent as whitewashing slavery itself. It's racism under a different flag. While it's not a criminal offense, it is a crime against truth and history.
I'm not talking about re-enactors here. These folks just want to live history. But the Neo-Confederate movement is a disguised attempt to change history.
In the end, the Confederacy was out-fought, out-lasted, eventually out-generaled and totally over-matched. It was a criminal idea to start with, and its success would have changed the course of modern history for the worse.
Coming to that realization cost this nation half a million lives.
So I hope that all Neo-Confederates -- 140 years after the fact -- can finally get out of their racist, twisted, angry time machine and join us here in 2003.
James Madison, in Federalist No. 45 understood secession.
Can't you imagine the way that town must have stunk?
No, but I feel certain the citizens of 19th-century New York City did. During the 1832 Cholera outbreak in NYC, the following occurred:
"In addition to the establishment of hospitals, [New York City] also created primitive welfare services, slum clearance programs, food and drug regulations, and the suppression of unsanitary nuisances. Streets, which had never been cleaned of the accumulation of several decades of excrement, dead animals, garbage, and other waste, were shoveled, swept, cleaned and covered with tons of chloride of lime (quicklime). The City's worst slums were evacuated. These newly indigent and homeless persons required the immediate rental of several buildings as well as supplies of food, clothing, and drugs. Temporary housings or shanties were erected in several places within the city."
Whatever they did, it was not enough. There were new Cholera outbreaks in NYC in 1834 and 1849.
Yes, Butler cleaned up the town for the first time in it's history, and that year there was no yellow fever, and for the first time, the 40,000 indigent among the citizenry were fed adequately. The things you admire..... phewwwwwwwwww!
If you had not stated you were talking about New Orleans, I would have guessed New York City. Of course, Philadelphia had many Yellow Fever outbreaks.
BTW, do you always have to respond to everything I write out of context? I reference a New Orleans newspaper, and you imply I admire New Orleans! I assume if I told you I drive a BMW you would be implying I admire Hitler. I cannot figure out who you remind me of most: Terry McAuliffe, Katie Couric, or Gray Davis. Are you Katie?
That's a lie and you know it is a lie.
The Court cited U.S. law and you well know it.
"But, by the Acts of Congress of February 28th, 1795, and 3d of March, 1807, he is authorized to called out the militia and use the military and naval forces of the United States in case of invasion by foreign nations and to suppress insurrection against the government of a State or of the United States."
Auburn has got our number tonight.
Walt
Typical DIM response. Wishing for the death of your opponents. Good day.
Wel, Jim Jones was a preacher, wasn't he?
Maybe Rasputin was more your type? He was a preacher.
Idiot.
Walt
FIGHT WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT
FOR THE ORANGE AND WHITE!!!
FIGHT VOLS FIGHT!!!
Walt
Let the spirit of the Hill,
Every Vol with courage fill;
Your loyalty means our victory,
So FIGHT VOLS FIGHT!!!
Walt
I'm claiming that the president has the power under law to suppress rebellion and insurrection, which is what the Supreme Court said also.
Walt
The Southern States had several legal options available in the 1850's and early 1860's if they wished to test the "right" of secession:
(1) The states could have proposed and tried to pass secession legislation in the US Congress. This would have provided a framework within which a State could leave the Union with the consent of the other States.
(2) The secessionists could have tried to pass a Constitutional Amendment that dealt with the issue (2/3rds approval by each House of congress and ratification of 3/4ths of the States).
(3) The secessionists could have attempted to call a Constitutional Convention for the purpose of proposing a secession amendment, or even dissoving the Union.
(4) The secessionists could have passed within their State(s) secession resolutions and sued in Federal Court to enforce the resolutions.
(5) The secessionist states could have tried negotiating their exit(s), possibly "buying" their way out or entering into treaty-like agreements with the remainder of the Union.
The Southern secessionist States did none of these things. They did not even attempt to do these things. They chose revolution instead. They chose poorly.
'On this first question therefore we are of the opinion that the President had a right, jure belli, to institute a blockade of ports in possession of the States in rebellion, which neutrals are bound to regard.'
See De jure belli ac pacis [On the Law of War and Peace] by Hugo Grotius, the "father of the law of nations".
The justices held that the issue of secession was not addressed by the court: 'Several of these States have combined to form a new confederacy, claiming to be acknowledged by the world as a sovereign State. Their right to do so is now being decided by wager of battle.'
Just because you claim the title doesn't mean you are a man of God's calling.
Maybe Rasputin was more your type? He was a preacher.
No, not mine. Your hero?
Idiot.
If you are, I can't help it.
So, you have retreated to its only pertaining to rebellion and insurrection and you have given up on claiming that the Militia Law of 1795 or any other Federal law proves that secession was unconstitutional.
[Walt 588] Whatever else secession is, it is -not- legal under U.S. law.
You are certainly entitled to your opinion.
Of course, secession is neither rebellion nor insurrection.
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
This is binding on the State Legislatures and the executive and judicial Officers of the States. Please note that the oath called for in this clause does not ask state officers to uphold or enforce the Constitution but to "support" it.
The U.S. has laws, say for the collection of tariffs. The Militia Act empowers the president to call out the militia and ensure that the laws are executed. If you can figure out a way for U.S. laws to be in effect and still call it secession, go for it.
Walt
The Justices held that the secessionists were traitors.
I can't figure why you neo-rebs drag this same thing out in thread after thread, when the clear words of the Supreme Court slam dunk everything you say on this subject.
Walt
That is more or less what President Lincoln said.
"It might seem, at first thought, to be of little difference whether the present movement at the south be called "secession" or "rebellion." The movers, however, well understand the difference. At the beginning, they knew they could never raise their treason to any respectable magnitude, by any name that implies violation of law. They knew their people possessed as much of moral sense, as much of devotion to law and order, as much pride in, and reverence for, the history, and government, of their common country, as any other civilized and patriotic people. They knew they could make no advancement directly in the teeth of these strong and noble sentiments. Accordingly they commenced by an insidious debauching of the public mind.
They invented a sophism, which, if conceded, was followed by perfectly logical steps, through all the incidents, to the complete destruction of the Union. The sophism itself is, that any state of the Union may, consistently with the national constitution, and therefore lawfully, and peacefully, withdraw from the Union, without the consent of the Union, or of any other state.
The little disguise that the supposed right is to be exercised only for just cause, themselves to be the sole judge of its justice, is to thin to merit any notice...
What is now combatted, is the position that secession consistent with the Constitution -- is lawful, and peaceful. It is not contended that there is any express law for it; and nothing should ever be implied as law, which leads to unjust or absurd consequences. The nation purchased, with money, the countries out of which several of these states were formed. Is it just that they shall go off without leave, and without refunding? The nation paid very large sums, (in the aggregate, I believe, nearly a hundred millions) to relieve Florida of the aboriginal tribes. Is it just that she shall now be off without consent, or without making any return? The nation is now in debt for money applied to the benefit of the so-called seceding states, in common with the rest. Is it just, either that creditors shall go unpaid, or the remaining States pay for the whole? A part of the present national debt was contracted to pay the old debts of Texas. Is it just that she shall leave, pay no part of it herself?
Again, if one state may secede, so may another; and then when all shall have seceded, none is left to pay the debts. Is this quite just to creditors? Did we notify them of this sage view of ours when we borrowed there money? If we now recognize this doctrine, by allowing the seceders to go in peace, it is difficult to see what we can do, if others choose to go, or to extort terms terms upon which they will promise to remain...
If all the states, save one, should assert the power to drive that one out of the Union, it is presumed the whole class of seceder politicians would at once deny the power, and denounce the act as the greatest outrage upon State rights. But suppose that precisely the same act, instead of being called "driving the one out," should be called "the seceding of the others from that one," it would exactly what the seceders claim to do; unless, indeed, they make the point, that the one, because it is a minority, may rightfully do, what the others because they are a majority may not rightfully do. These politicians are subtle, and profound, on the rights of minorities. They are not so partial to that power, which made the Constitution, and speaks from the preamble, calling itself "We the People."
A. Lincoln, 7/4/61
Walt
No it's not.
I'm getting a big kick out of this.
So Jim Jones and Rasputin possessed the revealed word, and never said anything at all questionable?
Walt
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